Have you tried using Telnet to chat on IRC? Of course, you'll have to be familiar with the IRC protocol (RFC 1459). So I'm a techno-geek, sue me. I've also been using Telnet to check my POP mail; I've also been playing around with Telnet to connect to various 'Net daemons (such as my ISP's smtpd. It's interesting what you discover when trying out Telnet, you know.
Originally from here